Summary
Although Gibson (1979) did not explicitly discuss the perspectival appearing of the ecological environment, his important ecological approach to visual perception can accommodate both (a) the stream of visual-perceptual experience that flows at the heart of the visual system's total activity of ordinary visual perceiving (ordinary seeing), and (b) the dimension of the visual experiential stream that is the ecological environment's perspectival appearing to the visual perceiver. In the present article, perspectival appearing is located at the level of brain centers of the visual system, where processes are determined by the spatiotemporally structured visual stimulus flux. And the stream of visual experience is interpreted as itself possessing a kind of perspective structure (as does the visual stimulus flux), including variant and invariant features that the visual system isolates and extracts from experience, producing the perceiver's cognitive visual “awareness-of” (Gibson, 1979) the environment and self in the environment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blinder, D. (1986). A new look at vision.Topoi, 5, 137–148.
Cutting, J. E. (1986).Perception with an eye for motion. Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
Gibson, J. J. (1950).The perception of the visual world. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, J. J. (1966).The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, J. J. (1970). On the relation between hallucination and perception.Leonardo, 3, 425–428.
Gibson, J. J. (1972). The legacies of Koffka's Principles.Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 7, 3–9.
Gibson, J. J. (1979).The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, J. J. (1985). Conclusions from a century of research on sense perception. In S. Koch and D. E. Leary (Eds.),A century of psychology as science (pp. 224–230). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Haber, R. N. (1985). Perception: A one-hundred year perspective. In S. Koch and D. E. Leary (Eds.),A century of psychology as science (pp. 250–281). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Husserl, E. (1977).Phenomenological psychology. The Hague, Netherlands: Nijhoff. (Lectures presented in 1925)
Husserl, E. (1983).Ideas I. The Hague, Netherlands: Nijhoff. (Original work published 1913)
James, W. (1890).The principles of psychology. (2 Vols.). New York: Holt.
Koffka, K. (1935).Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
McKenna, W. R. (1982).Husserl's “introductions to phenomenology.” The Hague, Netherlands: Nijhoff.
Michotte, A., Thinès, G., & Crabbé, G. (1964). Les compléments amodaux des structures perceptives. InStudia Psychologica. Louvain: Publications Université de Louvain.
Natsoulas, T. (1974). The subjective, experiential element in perception.Psychological Bulletin, 81, 611–631.
Natsoulas, T. (1984). Towards the improvement of Gibsonian perception theory.Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 14, 231–258.
Natsoulas, T. (1987–1988). Gibson, James, and the temporal continuity of experience.Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 7, 351–376.
Natsoulas, T. (1989a). From visual sensations to the seen-now and the seen-from-here.Psychological Research, 51, 87–92.
Natsoulas, T. (1989b). The distinction between visual perceiving and visual perceptual experience.Journal of Mind and Behavior, 10, 37–62.
Natsoulas, T. (1989c). The ecological approach to perception: The place of perceptual content.American Journal of Psychology, 102, 443–476.
Natsoulas, T. (1990a). Reflective seeing: An exploration in the company of Edmund Husserl and James J. Gibson.Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 21, 1–31.
Natsoulas, T. (1990b). “Why do things look as they do? Some Gibsonian reactions to Koffka's question. Davis, CA: UCD Psychology Department.
Reed, E. S. (1988).James J. Gibson and the psychology of perception. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Searle, J. R. (1983).Intentionality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, D. W. (1984). Content and context of perception.Synthese, 61, 61–87.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Natsoulas, T. Perspectival appearing and Gilbson's theory of visual perception. Psychol. Res 52, 291–298 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00868060
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00868060